Busy Bees

On the few occasions recently when the Sun has shone my heather plants have been swarming with bees. I would guess they are coming from a local smallholding where there are lots of bee hives. They were making the most of a sunny period with the temperature reaching 14˚C.









I only saw one bumble bee. Usually it has been the opposite, lots of bumble bees and few honey bees.

They were not alone - seemingly basking in the Sun was this lone hairy caterpillar:





It appears to be the caterpillar of the Ruby Tiger Moth which feeds on heather, amongst other things. The adult can be seen here on the ukmoths site.

Temptation

On and off I have been keeping an eye on the new nestbox, the funny shaped one! I haven't seen any activity near it for ages. As any movement in the nearby greenery triggers the auto record I had it switched off during windy weather. Today I thought I might add a bit of temptation in the form of three dollops of bird friendly peanut butter (no added salt):

 

 I have always thought that there is at least one bird watching to see what I am up to.
Within ten minutes there was someone taking a quick look:

 

Pity that in the shade there was virtually no colour but I'm pretty sure it was a Robin. It didn't investigate the peanut butter but that may attract some others in the coming days.

Sunspots

A couple of days ago I attempted to shoot some video of the Sun. With the 70D 3x digital zoom and the 100-400mm lens it was possible to have the Sun fill the frame. I guess the equivalent focal length used would have been 900-1000mm. That bit worked out well. Unfortunately, in spite of the sturdy tripod, the gusty wind gave enough vibration to make the video unwatchable. On the other hand when I grabbed a still from the video it was clear enough to use:


This still shot showing a line of Sunspots is as grabbed from the video with no processing or cropping.


For anyone who hasn't seen the previous post on photographing the Sun please note that the only safe way to keep your eyesight and an unfried camera is to use a solar filter designed for that job.

Friday at the Flicks - Great Tit Still Roosting

I haven't mentioned it much but I have been keeping an eye on the camera nest box.  Every night I have looked it has been occupied:



She isn't very good at keeping the nest box clean. Previous roosters have normally cleared out any mess each day.

Windy

As forecast, yesterday was a very windy day with gusts of over 100mph being recorded in some areas of the UK. Fortunately, though very squally, we didn't suffer anything like that. These are snapshots taken at one minute intervals so some stronger gusts could have been missed:



The highest gusts my weather station recorded were around 43mph which was quite enough for me. At one stage I was looking out of the kitchen window when one particularly strong gust actually lifted the back of my summerhouse off the ground. For one heart stopping moment I thought it was going to end up falling on its front but fortunately it settled down again.

A Land Oyster?

On one of our regular routes stands the stump of a tree which was cut down a few years ago. From time to time there is a fungus growing on it.

The way it droops over the edge of the stump always reminds me of  Salvador Dali's Melting Clock:







I always find it difficult to identify fungi but I think this one is the Oyster Mushroom - Pleurotus ostreatus.

Sunny February Afternoon Walkies

Yesterday stayed Sunny all day with a high of 13C in the shade. Not bad for a February day here. Forecast is for the weather to return to being overcast, wet and windy so it was a case of making the most of a good day.  Taking the path behind the church I wanted to see if any horses were out in the paddock. Two of Stan's horses were outside soaking up the warmth:



Down the track opposite the church Penny took her time to investigate every scent and seemed to be contemplating the risks of getting any closer to the water filled ditch:



Lovely picturesque views across the local flat farmland to the Lincolnshire Wolds:



The above photo was taken with the Nikon at wide angle. On the horizon, about a third the way from the left, about 5Km away, is the spire of Louth's St. James Church towering above the town which is in a valley. Here it is as seen using the full zoom on the Nikon:



All the above were processed using various filters in SimplyHDR.